by W. Eric Martin

In July 2024, I wrote about how Jungo — one of two spinoffs of Toshiki Arao's 2021 card game Hachi Train — came to be, but with the game hitting the U.S. market in July 2025 from Happy Camper ahead of a spotlight at Gen Con 2025, I thought I'd share first impressions based on three plays on a review copy.

In Jungo, you get a hand of eight or ten cards (depending on the player count), you can't sort them, and you need to empty your hand first to win. Flinging your cards at opponents is not an option, however satisfying that might be.

The lead player lays down one or more cards of the same value that were adjacent to one another in that player's hand, then in turn players either beat what's on the table by playing a better set — that is, the same number of cards but of a higher value, or a set with more cards — or pass. When you beat a previous play, you either add those cards to your hand, placing them where you wish, or discard them.

Why does "placing them where you wish" matter? Because in addition to cards numbered 1-8, the Jungo deck contains a few double-value cards — 1/2, 3/4, 5/6, and 7/8 — that can be treated like either individual number. If you beat a pair of 5s, but the pair is actually a 5 and a 5/6, you can place the 5 in one location and the 5/6 in another, say, next to one or more 6s. Ideally, of course, you have 5s and 6s already next to one another in your hand and can sandwich the 5/6 between them to give yourself future play options.

When you pass, you draw the top card of the deck, then either (1) add it to your hand, (2) discard it, or (3) add it to your hand, then immediately play it as part of a set to beat the current set on the table. Once all players but one pass in turn, clear the table, then whoever last played leads a new set.

If you play your final cards, you win.

In the field of ladder-climbing, card-shedding games, Jungo is relatively simple, with the only gameplay restriction being that you can't sort cards in your hand. As a result, a game might last only a handful of times around the table, especially when you have 4-5 players and start with only eight cards in hand.

Since each game tends to be brief, the rules suggest playing multiple rounds, with the first player who wins two rounds winning the game as a whole — but even this might be quick. I played twice with four players, and each of them lasted only three rounds: Player A won, Player B won, then Player A won again. The box bears a 15-minute playing time, and I think each game took a bit less than that, even with three rounds of play.

Part of the speediness resulted from Players C and D being able to do little more than pass as sets escalated quickly in size; if you don't have even a high pair in your hand, you might find yourself shut out. Gameplay is quick, so having one dud hand isn't terrible, but the eight-card hand size seemed to make this problem more frequent than I would have expected — or players were beating exactly the sets they needed to pump up sets already in hand that they would then play almost immediately.

Ideally, the 4 goes first, then three 1s, then two 7s
I later played Jungo with three players, and the two additional cards you receive in a two- or three-player game made a huge difference, with each round having a greater sense of development.

Two of us were playing for the third time, so that probably helped as well, with us making better choices of what not to play. You don't want to feed your left-hand opponent cards, so if they picked up a 4 previously and haven't yet played it, you will hesitate before ditching the 4 from the other end of your hand — or at least you should. The overriding principle seems to be: Don't hand opponents the tools they need to defeat you...yet you need to empty your hand to win, so good luck with that.

Interestingly, nearly all of the gameplay changes that originating publisher Cocktail Games made from Hachi Train to Jungo have eased the burden on players, making the design more suited for a mainstream audience of casual game players — which is primarily the audience that both Cocktail Games and Happy Camper seeks, so that's not surprising.

Also of interest, at least to those on BGG who know about the existence of Toshiki Arao's original release, you can undo these changes to play Hachi Train with a Jungo deck:

▪️ Place all of the double-valued cards in their own deck.
▪️ Use only 3-5 cards of each number 1-8 based on the player count, then deal each player a hand of eight cards.
▪️ When you overplay a set, you must add the previous set to your hand (unless you go out).
▪️ When you pass, draw a card from the double-valued deck and add it to your hand. When this deck is empty, you must play, if possible.
▪️ Keep playing until only one person has cards in hand; this player loses the round.
▪️ If a player loses a round twice, they lose the game; otherwise, after four rounds, whoever has the most losses loses the game.

If you're playing with casual gamers over tea and cookies, Jungo is a laid-back challenge in which you can discard what you don't want to keep and in which you can build sets of up to eight cards, smashing everything else on the table in a romp to victory.

Or you can transform it into Jungo: Ironman Edition, a.k.a, Hachi Train. No one starts with double-valued cards; everyone must pick up overplayed cards, even if they make your hand worse; everyone knows exactly which cards are in play, so you can track everything still in players' hands; and if you lose once, you're on the brink of elimination.

Whichever way you play, the monkeys won't judge you.

Image: Wouter Debisschop